Into Dust
by Shesbeenlying
Summary: She waits for salvation on a beach, and finally hits the rock bottom she's always been bracing for. [Marissa's story]
1. Still Falling

**Into Dust**

**Summary:**She waits for salvation on a beach, and finally hits the rock bottom she's always been bracing for. Marissa's Story

**Rating:** R for drug use and language, and sexuality.

**Disclaimer: **We've been on the run..driving in the sun...The OC isn't mine.

**Author's Note: **So I am thinking this isn't going to be just a one shot, but i am not sure. I have this little story planned out, but i guess i'll just have to see. I need some feedback majorly for this one, so if you review that would be just fantastic. This story is really attributed to our favorite could be fuck up drug addict Marissa, and takes place a little bitinto the future if you can't tell. Also the story is named after the Mazy Star song "Into Dust" which is pretty much the theme of this story. So tell me what you think biatchs!

She smokes a cigarette and lean up against the cold cement wall. Sand's in her shoes, and it kind of tickles, but all she can really think about is the drag she keeps on taking know she looks delicate with it, placed in between her fingers instead of tough. Sad eyes and bony shoulders are nearly impossible features to make you look anything less than delicate, anything less than scared. Because that's just it. She's something she'd never admit to be… scared, and always have been. In spite of the few moment's he madeher feel safe, despite those few times, her life has been nothing but lies. She grew up in that. And it's something that has become a part of her. Screaming in her mind, she tries to forget how she ended up so low. So alone.

Then she sees it. Salvation. Dark eyes and baggy jeans. She wipes her mouth, and inside she lets a little bit of excitement build up. He's pathetic, and scary looking. His eyes are tough and hard, and she knows he's probably seen everything. She can only pretend to have seen everything, because you can't see much looking out from the world she's always been trapped in. Always been suffocated with. The way he walks amuses her, like even here, on the beach, it is necessary to be careful of every step you take. Every drag he takes of his cigarette is so planned out precisely, like everyone is watching him, and his hard eyes, and dark skin.

"Well, well, well…" he says kind of mockingly as he reaches his destination.

"Shit, who ever knew I'd ever become a supplier to Ryan's ex-girlfriend. What's the matter baby, daddy didn't buy you the new Mercedes?"

"Fuck off." She growls. And despises herself even more for turning to him. She begins to pick at the dry sand around her ankles, and can barely look at him.

"Hey baby, I ain't gunna lie, you were a nice lay though." He smiles. His yellowed out teeth and blistered skin mock her. She reaches for the enevelope, hoping soon he'd just fucking give it to her and be gone. She wishes he didn't insist on pushing her and grinding her even harder into the rock bottom she'd hit. Pushing her harder into the concrete wall, she wished the sun wasn't in her eyes. She wished her cigarette wasn't almost gone. She wished maybe he could take a little bit of pity on her.

"Fuck you Eddie, just give me the fucking package." She says barely above a whisper.

"Aww baby, don't worry I ain't gunna tell Ryan, you don't gotta talk so quiet. From what I hear he's doin' alright. Hitting the Ivy Leagues, shit, that boy has it made."

He laughed to himself. If she had anything right now she'd kill him. Because she hated him, almost as much as she hated herself.

"You embarrassed to be here? Talkin' to me? Shit, look at you. You ain't no better than me now." His condescending laughs starting to get to her. The way he did it after every sentence. "You weren't to embarrassed when you were fucking me." The cornor of his lips turning up into a little smile. He looked at her and suddenly she felt naked. Suddenly she felt more used than she ever did. She crossed her arms and tried hard to cover up her overwhleming weaknesses.

"We had an agreement Eddie, I sleep with you, I get the drugs, so hand them the fuck over." She says, even then she's pleading. Even then she was begging. Because all she'd come to is desperation. Like a child begging for candy. Sheisn't in charge, and that's all she has to give. But she can't let him see how weak she is.

"Yeah, shit your right." He says throwing the burning cigarette mercilessly to the ground. Burning it out with the help of the sand, and his shoe. Right near her thigh.She sat there like a doll against the cement wall, praying he'd just leave her with what she needed.

"How can I not? To someone who was as good as you, Princess." He throws her the square familiar dark paper. She touches it, feels it, and for a moment she thinks that maybe everything might be alright. Her dark blue eyes light up in delight, and in anticipation. She runs her hands over it. She holds the cigarette in between her hands and sets it in her lap, running the other through her hair.

"You can get the fuck out of here now." She says looking up, now that she got what she's wanted. Now that she's made her arrangements. She didn't know what she wouldn't do anymore. She'd like to know just one thing she wouldn't do in her grinding cement paradise. Running her slim hands over the package, tracing it. Because it was the only real beauty she had anymore. When everything looked grey, and everything was hard. When everything you touched cut you, yetnothing could make you bleed.

"I said get the fuck away Eddie," She screamed now at the lack of his disappearance. That's the way she played these days. She didn't like unpleasant reminders. And she certainly didn't need anything other than herself.

He just laughed at her. At the mess she was. At this skinny girl with bony shoulders, looking as jaded and imperfect as ever. But so untouched. Her little screams made her seem like she still thought she was better. He kicked the sand by her and wiped away emotion. He walked away laughing. Salvation leaving the beach.

She knew then it was empty. She wouldn't be saved tonight. She was too weak to find him, too weak to scream. Too weak to think back. She was stretched as thin as possible, and the sun was starting to set in her blue eyes. When darkness would come she'd find someplace…somewhere…but not yet. For now she just stared into the fading light, her hair sticking to her face. Her hands digging into the sand she hugged her knees and sat against the concrete. Breathing into the smoke everything was still. She was fading in the stillness, wasting away into nothingness. And no one or nothing was there to save her.


	2. breathless and on again

Dragging her heels was hard. But she managed stretched and thin, stormed and sorrowed to walk. To walk along the beach with the wind blowing through her matted hair. The night creeping upon her and the ocean at the same pace, swallowing her. Swallowing it. She looked like she had traveled forever, but only been gone a day. She managed to keep her head up, her petty pride sticking in her gut as she made the walk of shame. Every walk she made these days was a walk of shame. She had ended up fucked. She had ended up alone. She had ended up just like she had always thought she would but never believed she would actually. Night. It crept in slowly, and time was running out. She knew if she spent this night after this day on the streets that little grain of pride she carried around her neck would be gone completely. And she didn't know if she was ready to give that up. So she walked. And walked.

Blue lights and pink neon signs blazing against her face, reflecting in her eyes. Freckling across her skin, and traveling up her arms. They were so garish and bright. She would have been annoyed if she weren't so tired, and so unexplainably numb. The street was full of people, laughing and living. Teenager boys with sweaty palms and giddy expectations and girls with short skirts and giggly hopes. People holding hands, a couple kissing hard against a brick alley wall oblivious to the world around them, a group of kids baggy pants and stocking caps gathered around a black truck with the base blasting. Everything around her was so loud, everything around her was so alive.

She liked to surround herself with this, it is in these ways she remembered what it was like not to be how she was now. She remembered little times and little memories. She remembered the taste of happiness. She pushed on the doors and the room invited her in. Neon lights splashed, and smoked billowed through the air. Music pounded and she saw them. Low lifes, grunged out men with worn leather jackets and girls dancing slow in bright pink shorts. Greedy eyed men and lost looking girls. Lowlifes and grunges. These were her people now.

"Marcie!" Eduardo called at her from behind the bar. "Where you been girl, damn, we haven't seen you for a couple of days!" She looked at him with mild interest, usually she could pretend a little but they all knew she was different.

"Just out doing my shit." Her eyes gave a twinge of a sarcastic smile as she accepted the drink he slid her way.

"You know AJ's been looking for you for the last few days. He has a few ideas in mind for you chicky." She drowned herself and half listened. Focusing on his greasy black hair. Everything in here was slime. But then again so we she now. She just nodded her head and ran her finger across the rim of the glass. She licked her lips. They tasted like salt and blood. She felt her hair. It felt like grunge and matted dirt. She smelled like smoke and she didn't even want to imagine what she looked like. Like washed out beautiful. Like hollow beauty. Not that she even considered herself beautiful anymore, not like she even cared. Her eyes flickered back to the black grease and tan hands motioning at her. He was still talking but she didn't really want to be reminded of what.

She knew what she was about to go do. It wasn't like she had to acknowledge it, or even admit it, quite yet. Only when the desperation would creep around her would she throw herself all away.  
"So baby, AJ says you gotta go meet him in the back room in like an hour. If you want the money that is." Black grease nodded at her. She tugged at her frayed shorts and itched at her t-shirt, the sweat sticking to the faded pink cloth and her stringy hair.

"Your clothes are upstairs. Where they usually are for you if you decide you want to take that." He motioned to the stairs. If she took it? He knew there wasn't an if. He knew she had no other way. They all did. They had all trapped her in her useless reality. After awhile of tracing the glass's outlines and scratching at the wooden bar she knew it was time. She moved through the crowd and went upstairs to the small apartment. Taking the extra key from underneath the small fake looking potted cactus next to the door. The apartment was tiny and smelled like TV dinners, sweat, and unwashed clothes. Make that unwashed everything. She made her way into the spare bedroom. All there was, was the bare mattress. Empty and full of miscellaneous stains. She opened the brown door to the closet and tugged on the string. The light flickered for the next five minutes as she rummaged through the array of costumes. Bright pinks, and purples. Yellows and greens, sequins and faded stars. She picked up the turquoise fake leather boots and sat down on the naked mattress. She slid off her shirt and unbutton her shorts shimmying them to the floor. Leaving them in a lonely pile on the floor, and leaving her half naked in the lonely room. Half naked in the bitter heat. She threw a leather skirt on the mattress and slid a red polyester and fake silk looking corset next to the mound of her new identity piling up on the stained mattress.

She sat down sliding the boots up her legs. Sliding the skirt onto her bony hips. Pulling the corset onto her gaunt ribs. She left the room turning off the light and made her way to the bathroom. Filthy as usual she pulled open the first drawer. Finding the worn out makeup she smudged red lipstick on her lips, and dark shadow around her eyes. It was makeup that was dirty. Cheap. It had been there forever. It had been used by everyone. Once she was done she glanced in the mirror. She almost laughed at the girl starring back at her. Ridiculously made up and awkward, much too skinny for her own good. But she knew she needed the makeup, and everything. It was all part of her charade. All part of her costume. That way she couldn't blame herself for what she was about to do. She never could, because maybe then she could blame it on that ridiculously desperate looking girl in the mirror.

Letting the heat swallow her she quickly turned off the lights leaving everything dark and still smelling of sweat. She made her way down the stairs and into the bar. Into the back room. Doing exactly what she was told. It was dark in the back. People trying to have a good time. She saw the sweet exchange of happiness as the swallowed out lucky few escaped to pure happiness. Back here was where the true members of the rock bottom club got to escape to. Back here was the trap that controlled them all.

"Hey baby, it's nice to see you again. You look beauuuuuuutiful." She felt a hot and half drunk face kiss her cheek. Itching it with his unshaved face.

"I got you a good one tonight. Baby you and I are gunna be so rich tonight." AJ. The utter definition of low. Of digusting. His eyes were full of pure sin, and his teeth were rotted. His eyes sunk in, and he had the face of man who used to be attractive but he had melted it away with years of hard drugs. He looked 10 years older than he was, and acted like he was 30 years older than he was. She guessed he was only about 25 but she never really knew about anyone anymore, nor did she really care. He was the man who pulled on her puppet strings. He was the man who controlled this girl in the leather skirt and red lips. He had never seen her without it. She didn't want him to. She didn't want him to ever to. It would mean this was all a reality. She wasn't ready to accept that yet.

"Baby, damn you always look so fucking worried. So serious, fuck, relax Marcie, you look so….jaded."

She tried to feed him a little forced smile. She could never relax around him. She was too busy acting.

"Where do I need to go?" She had to be direct, to the point, even still.

"Third door next door. Room 108. I already talked to him. Big time guy. Rich as hell too! I don't know why he thinks he's gotta pay for a good fuck! Marcie baby, after this one you and me, baby we're gunna be rolling in it for months. " His eyes shifted greedily. They were all victims of their own desires. Even AJ, leading them all, was prisoner in his own cell of desire. Of wanting. That was what chained them all. It was the drive that all junkies had.

She nodded, making her way out of there. She just couldn't wait to get out of there. Leaving sin, she headed out into the night air. For a few seconds she could be alone, before she had to start acting again. She needed these few minutes. Room 108 wasn't very far. Wasn't nearly as far as she had hoped. It was a motel called _The Palm Shore Motel_. It's lights flickered and the parking lot was nearly empty. Vaction season was nearly over, but she doubted in the late August night that any family would ever stay in a place like this. The fake leather clung to her legs, and they were already full of sweat. Her makeup was no doubt starting to smear as she knocked on the worn purplish door of room 108.

"Come in." A nervous voice responded. She cleared her face, ready to become numb for the next 3 hours. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw sitting on the bed. Nothing. A boy, hands in his lap, staring at her with nervous eyes.

"Marissa?" He said looking up with every single emotion tied into one flooding the room. No one even called her that anymore.

She breathed into the empty space. Into the door she had just opened that she though she had shut forever.

"Ryan…"


	3. Inside me, today

_Author's Note: okay i know this is like the shortest chapter of all time. But it's kind of an inbetween for what's coming next which is the big one. This will be updated a lot more now I'm hoping! Reviews are hot. _

Time was stopped.

She couldn't think, she couldn't breathe.

She couldn't look in his eyes, how was this happening? She was convinced it wasn't. No, No it wasn't.

She tried to remember the last time she'd taken a hit was.

Maybe this was all fantasy, not real. It couldn't be. Everything around her felt fuzzy, and she wasn't even sure what was real anymore.

"Marissa." He breathed it again.

And she turned her back. She couldn't look at him. She couldn't look at what her mind had made up.

Her world was spinning and she couldn't let the numbness she had held up for so long shatter because of something she had made up. Nothing was real.

Nothing could ever be real.

The pavement was hard, sticky, for one of the hottest nights of the year.

She couldn't even remember running, she just needed to go find something to slip her further. She couldn't think. Everything was spinning. Colors splashing across her face, sweat pouring into her boots.

She pushed her way through, the crowd of people. Dancing in the streets happily. Living their lives.Unaware of the bony girl with red eyes and smeared red lipstick. She felt it then.

The sand sticking to her thighs.Mixing with her sweat,against her neck as she collapsed onto the beach. The world was swallowing her. This was it. The sky was swallowing her.

She felt warmness on her back. But everything else blurred away as the blurred stars twisted into blackness.


	4. Beside me, today

Waking up everything still spun. Before she opened her eyes, she heard voices. She felt nylon, and the air was cool. There was a humming. There were voices. A voice. Her eyes were much too heavy. Her throat burned, and her stomach was clenched. Barely even moving she felt the cold sweat that must have poured off of her into the thin sheets underneath her. She didn't open her eyes though.

"Yeah I got her here, No, listen…." She opened her eyes. Her eyes met his. Blurred but she still could make them out. Blue eyes. Pacing around near a shaded window. The TV soundless in the background, a news reporter on CNN in a blue wool suit talking with no words. She couldn't look at him. She just focused on the red mouth, without words.

"Yeah, I gotta go." He said, flipping down his cell phone, and taking a deep breath.

He gave a nervous smile. She did her best not to feel 16 again. But she fucking did. She so fucking did.

"You doing okay?"

Did it look like she was doing okay? The marks on her arms could've told him that. The vomit he'd no doubly cleaned up already on the floor could've told him that. The way she didn't recognize her own name anymore could have told him that.

"Look…we don't have to talk now. You should sleep, I mean I'll get you some water or something. Just, go to sleep." The way he talked to her was so forced. She couldn't help but think that this was a dream. She couldn't help but think that that girl that he was talking to, had died. Like he was talking to some ghost. An apparition he'd glimpsed at when he saw her image. But even her empty eyes could've told him that.

Because she wasn't that girl anymore.

"Stay here." He said, not like he used to though, tentatively. Like he was scared to tell her what to do. As he left, she pieced it together. The familiar cheaply fake duplicated hotel furniture. The scratchy nylon comforters and chair coverings. The dimmed lamps, and plastic covered channel guide that sat next to her on a flimsy wooden end table. She was wearing baggy clothes. Which, had to be his. No where in sight where her clothes.

She had to get out of here.

It clicked in her the second she finally settled in. She couldn't stay. Panic started to creep over her, she couldn't let herself. Realizing he'd be back soon she threw the sticky sheets off of her and finally eyed her boots by the door. Even putting them back on was too painful of a thought.

She wasn't even thinking as she stood up shaking profusely. Everything ached. Everything hurt. Even the numbness she had always felt couldn't block out the physical pain she was feeling. She even felt a little blood coming from her arm underneath the oversized t-shirt she was wearing. Then on the top of the TV, she saw the leather black book. She quickly opened it up, and inside was her key.

She grabbed it alland ran. It was almost dark out, a thought skimming her mind that she must have been sleeping the entire day. Dusk and it was still hot. The corridor wasstretching outway too longRunning so hard again, but she was too weak. This time she saw him and gave up. He was already standing there at the edge of the stairway of the motel, in this unfamiliar neighborhood he had taken her to, she didn't know what else to do.

She had no way to get away. She was trapped. And she knew that this time she couldn't escape. Feeling the sobs coming through her, but she couldn't even cry. Sticky sweat, and pain was all she felt. But this time, he was there to catch her.

"I'm not leaving you."

He said becoming every bit of who he used to be. And she surrendered partly, under the orange sky and dimming sun.


	5. Around broken in two

So He kept his promise. Laying her down onto the cool sheets and watching her eyes fight back. Fight back sleep as she slipped away. He was as bit as protective as he used to be, and he was oh so good. With a faded itchy chair next to the splattered and vibrant fluorescent comforter, he never left the room. She stirred a lot. She moaned a little even. But just ever so slightly. During the night he didn't sleep next to her.

He'd brush his teeth, have the TV on mute, and keep the light dimmed. He barely slept but when he did, he was only half way there. In the chair. Otherwise he'd sit. Hands crossed, and his eyes heavy. She was always in sight. She had always been in sight. It all kind of was like a dream. Vivid with the suburban setting, and remote ways that only this suburban motel room outside of San Diego, could make him feel like this was all just a dream. There wasn't anything but her. Her with her scars, and her bony arms. Her with her fragile skin, and chapped lips.

And him, completely and focused upon this. The way she breathed. The way she looked. But never the way she felt. He couldn't or wouldn't go there. Time kind of went into a warp, a limbo, where the days passed but it was just off and on. The cool fake feel of the central air conditioning, and the buzz of the lights, and the floor below. Everything was in fastfoward, and slow motion. It was on pause, not play.

Until she woke up. 48 and a half hours later he was staring at the ground. The tepholon carpet, and the faded bleach stain near the edge of the bed. He didn't even feel her eyes on him. Until he looked up.

"Hey." He kind of whispered. Looking at her with genuine surprise, and relief.

"Hey." She whispered back again. A whole lot of meaning behind two useless words that could've been spoken between two strangers.

"Have you been here the whole time." She said pulling the sheets off and placing her hand gently on the back of her neck.

"Yeah." He replied, with even that sounding the slightest bit breathless.

She gave him a half smile. Reaching down and realizing she was wearing a huge sweatshirt with the words BERKLEY stretched out across the chest. It was worn in, but not too worn in. And the hood was scrutched up behind her neck. Underneath she was wearing massive navy blue sweatpants that fit her everywhere but the waist where they slung low. Her legs, though long enough for them could barely fill any part of them. She concluded quickly that the clothes were Ryan's.

That they were still in the motel room, and that it had been at least a couple of days since….well since she had fallen apart in front of him in the orange fading sunlight. For the first time since she could remember, she had woken up feeling slightly alarmed at first, then overcome with a feeling she couldn't even recall. She couldn't even find the word for it, because the girl that she once was, had felt it once or twice. But that girl on the beach, that girl with the needles in her arm, sweatall overher body, and tears never reaching her eyes, that girl never felt this way.

He must have sensed something, in the way he used to do when her eyes got that drifty look. Because he wanted to rescue her from it.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah…I'm alright." She said looking at the sheets. Not meeting his eyes, too afraid that maybe he could see right through them. She was anything but alright.

"What time is it?" She asked, with genuine curiosity.

"7:23, at night, it's been about 2 days…since well…you kind of .." It was still delicate. This was still delicate…some things couldn't be said. Even if they had already been said in moments before. It was too early in it all for strong talks and utter truths. The silence between them wasn't exactly comfortable. But it wasn't uncomfortable either.

"Well do you want to go get something then? I mean in the lobby even, or near by. I'm kind of hungry." She lied. She was never hungry anymore. But she did want to get out of her. She was kind of anxious to see what reality greeted her outside, for once. She was kind of holding her breath in her, suffocating until she realized that this wasn't all a dream, and or the apocalypse wasn't occurring outside.

"Are you up for that?"

"Yeah, of course." Quickly trying to prove her stability she kicked off the covers and headed for the bathroom. The ground felt strange, and her legs were completely like jello, but she wasn't about to show him that.

"Just let me freshen up."


	6. Till your eyes shed into dust

That is how they ended up together in an empty Tepa Tequira, sitting in a dark green plastic booth over cokes and half picked at tacos. They had crossed the freeway just outside of the Motel, and gotten food at the Mexican fast food chain across the street. The sun was already half set by the time they sat down, the last of it reflecting in the sky like a mixed pink and purple. Marissa stared out the window into the artificialness of the safe suburbia she had found herself in.

So far from whatever ghost she had left in the empty space that still lingered between them ever since she opened that door. Ever since she ran through the crowd, ever since she collapsed on the sticky sand.

Ever since she could remember. The idea that he was saving her was something she wrapped around her finger, and kept in the back of her mind, where the old Marissa tried to break free. That girl though, hadn't seen the things that the girl picking at a chicken taco staring out the window at the night creeping up on whatever had been that day. Then it happened. She couldn't take this game.

"So, do you go to school?" But she couldn't find that truth yet either.

"Yeah, Berkley. On your sweatshirt." He laugehd a little and gestured to the sweatshirt he had given her to wear, "Sandy was proud."

For an instant a toothy smile spread across her face. She had almost forgotten, wait that was a lie, she had never forgotten but she had tried to block out the details of that life she had left behind. Ryan had a family. Ryan had the Cohens. The Cohens linked to the world she once belonged to.

"This will be my junior year, it's going pretty good." He was different in that sense. He had pride. He had meaning. He carried that around on his sleeve.

"What do are you studing" Focusing on stirring her watery coke around with her straw.

"Criminal Justice. Something in the system, I realized I wanna make things better. I want to work at getting people back to normal. Like the Cohens did for me. I mean maybe I'll eventually go to law school or something and help people out that way." He said it all so happily, like they were just talking again. Laying in the poorhouse after school or something. Yet it was different. After his smile faded a troubled look crossed his face, something she could almost guess as regret.

"Do you remember the week after I met you and Me, and you and Seth were hanging out at that one restaurant we used to all go to. The Crab Shack? I think? It was something pathetically Newport like that. And I was getting to know you, and you were getting to know me. And you saw me. Like really saw me. Even though we'd only known each other 4 days?"

He looked puzzled. But amused at her memory. "Yeah…"

"This reminds me of that." She said completely old Marissa. She was starting to come to her more easily. Like the wall she had built up around her, it was slowly coming down.

"Why?"

"Because we're getting to know each other all over again. We're two strangers who can really see each other." She didn't know why she had said that. She almost kind of regretted it as after it came out. But he smiled. He looked at put aside the utter mess she was, the utter stranger she was, and looked past that to find a piece that he would always be able to read.  
"You're right."

And that was it. The artificial mood that had been severed between them was done. It was broken. Thrown aside to find out whatever the hell was, that was going on. Because they just couldn't not.


	7. Like Two Strangers turning into dust

_dun dun dun! this one's critcal. Semi-short, but critical. Feedback for this would be like undeniably incredible. I'm a little nervous for it. Proud, but nerous. Aww okay well tell me what you think! _

"You jump first."

"I'm so not jumping first." She called back at him. The blue light danced across her delicate features. Her bony shoulders, tan from the southern California sun.

Tan from the days she had spent binged out on the beach. But that wasn't important right now. Right now she was Marissa. Maybe not Marissa Cooper, or the girl she used to be the last time they had a rendezvous near a pool, but she was Marissa in this moment. She was Marissa, in a white dress and for once the freckles in her eyes were shimmering ever so slightly in the blue and white tones dancing across her face.

She turned around and laughed. Looked at him and absolutely laughed. Not a fake laugh, not a protected laugh, a full out burst of giggles erupted from her mouth. Nothing held back. Nothing put behind.

"You're laughing." He screamed. He ran after her, another fit of almost forgotten foreign laughs escaping her lips as she ran barefoot across the wet cement. The back of the suburban chain motel that they were staying in provided them with the perfect spot to forget their troubles. A brown wooden fence, the giant metal box covering the air central air system , some fake landscaped clay looking pebbles, and browned grass was all that separated them from the real world. Them, from the highway, and the plastic looking commercialized fast food places, and half developed malls on the other side of the highway. But that wasn't important. Tonight they didn't live in the real world.

Marissa felt like Cinderella, only Cinderella wasn't a junkie prostitute and as she recalled Cinderella was poor and then became rich. Not the other way around.

But it wasn't like that mattered. She heard herself breathing in the dark. Not knowing where he'd come up from. That terrifying, but giddy feeling of being chased. But this time, it was for pretend. Her feet were wet, and the air was still sticky but it was starting to cool down just a little. She didn't even hear herself scream as he came out of no where and pretended to throw her in. Dangling over the water she screamed at him.

"Ryaaaaaan!" Laughing in between. Then she fell, dragging her with him. She was underwater. Everything blue, swirling, repeatedly freckling. She took a minute. Before she reached the top. The chlorine barely stinging her eyes. Her white dress stuck to her, and she ran her hand back through her hair. Breaking through. The night airhitting her. Spitting water out, and subconsciously coughing. Only she wasn't suffocating. No, she was defiantly breathing. The water was everywhere. She had always loved it. He was right there. The look on his eyes coming in and out with the blue light reflecting in steady waves.

Swimming over she draped her arms on the hard cement ledge. Where he already was. She hung there and looked at him.

"You're different." She said. Almost to herself more than anything.

"You're exactly the same."

She turned and bit her lip. She couldn't imagine wishing more than anything in this moment that that were true. She wished she was exactly the same. She'd give anything to be that naïve again. She'd give anything to be free of every single chain that was tying her down, she'd give anything to feel trapped by Newport, instead of trapped by herself.

She looked down, she didn't want to do this now. Everything had been so perfect. Everything had been so lost and forgotten. Blocked out by fences and blue pool light.

"Marissa…" he pleaded.

She looked at him. She took his hand. Running it across her arms. All the countless times she'd spent, binged out. All the countless times she'd given herself for just one more glimpse into something she'd sure she would find…over and over again. Here eyes were blue again, but she'd known the past 3 years they hadn't been. He traced her scars, feeling every time she'd injected a hit. She'd searched so hard. She'd ended up at the bottom. Feeding gracefully with the bottom suckers. All she'd needed was white lines and some straws. All she'd needed was an alley and a place to find her happiness in all shapes and forms. She closed her eyes.

"The first time I did it, I said to myself it would be the last time….the money I had taken from my mother had run out, I couldn't afford anything without that money. There was no way I was going to go back. I just kept thinking that maybe if….I still remember. It had been almost a year since I'd left. I met AJ. They all knew I was different. So from then on I'd come in. Go in the back room, they'd give me my fix, I'd go numb….all I really wanted was to not feel anything. All I really wanted was those few precious moments of calculated happiness where everything was forgotten…" She traced the edges of the jagged cement. The way the pebbles clung to it. "I just remembered thinking… I've forgotten what it's like to feel anything remotely hopeful. The first time, I cried. I cried the entire time. I don't even remember him touching me..."

Looking at him, his eyes hard and sincere. Like every word she was speaking was tearing him apart. He moved his hands up her arm. From the backside of her arm, to the side of her face. He kissed her. Gently, faintly apologetically. Touching her, tracing her. Trying to take her in bit by bit in the blue and smothered moonlight. "Marissa…" he breathed in her name with every single touch he'd give her.

This first time, she cried too. But it was nothing like the other, it couldn't have been any different.


	8. Till My Hands Shook, With The Way I Fear

_**Author's Note**: This is may be the last chapter of this story, and I know, I know it leaves a lot unanswered, but there is apart III have. If anything that's more talk, this one's more feeling. Anyways, feedback is unbelievable love, like please gimme some. Anyways here you go._

They sat on the hotel roof, it was only 3 stories high, but the sunrise peaked above the small white stuccoed building of the strip mall, and food chains. It was barely filtering along the palm trees that were lined up in the dry grass along the highway. They sat a few inches apart, but they had never been so close. Marissa, still wearing the same white dress that still clung to her, damp from the water. Her hair now curled under, was drying, her feet pushed up freely against the pebbles that lined the entire rooftop. Her hands fell casually gracing the ground, pushing into the surface, and her bony arms still looked gaunt. But everything about her couldn't look any more different. Her eyes reflected in the pink sun, but something in them was awake. Something in them was faintly starting to sparkle again, something very deep. It lit the rims, giving a sparkle of promise in her eyes, a sparkle of hope. Ryan sat next to her.

"We've never done this before have we?" He said, smiling slightly.

She couldn't tell for a minute if he was talking about watching the sunrise, or what had just happened with them earlier…For a panicked minute she looked at him slightly horrified, for any sign of regret. All she saw was goofy grain, and eyes that were only looking at her. No one had looked at her like that in a very long time. She had only gotten looks of lust, of want, greed, desire, dazed looks, and looks that went right through her. She had almost forgotten until tonight, this morning, what those kind of looks looked like. She had forgotten anything like them had really existed.

"I guess not." She teased. Giving him the slightest bit of a toothy smile back. The pink light reflecting over their skin, and the morning chill was just enough to appreciate it, after living so long in the smothering heat. The air was light, and the sky was pink. The roads were wet, and they sat settling in whatever paradise they had just found's majesty.

The days they had spent together had been a blur, she couldn't really begin to tell where this began and where it ended. How she had gone from dying slowly in the dust, to sitting in white next to the first boy she had ever loved. She swallowed it hard in her throat. Marissa had learned not to get her hopes up, her outside skin was still as thick as the years had made her, but inside she was still screaming. Still hoping. She didn't know what this meant. She didn't want to think about it. At this moment all she wanted to do was sit with the only presence that calmed her. The only thing that felt real

"Why did you leave?" It came kind of faintly, almost raspy from his voice.

"I don't think you have any idea. Your Mom, Summer, Seth….Me."

He looked up now. Directly at her. Everything was so raw again.

Swallowing in she remembered. The last 3 years. She remembered leaving in the night. She had remembered the hopeless desolate feeling. She remembered the endless binges. She remembered her life 3 days ago.

"I…I didn't…." Knowing there was no way to describe everything, to tell him everything in that moment. The small tears clung to her eyelashes, and she felt him grab her. Everything so familiar. Comfort, was more affective than any drug she had ever had. Any meaningless back alley exchange. This feeling she had now couldn't transfer into any 90 minute high, or 2 day binge. She cried. She cried and cried and cried. She realized she couldn't hide, or run, or try to cover up. She was lost and vulnerable and so broken. She had been smothered, and tossed around. All she had become now was a rag doll, with something in her eyes that people recognized as different. They sat like that for awhile. He didn't say anything. He didn't try to make her explain. He didn't try to understand. Until the sun came up fully, she knew she had to tell him. For every tear that she cried, for every look he gave, it was the least she could do.

An old Stereophonics song played on the radio of the rental car, the windows open and her hair flying everywhere. She had bought a pair of cheap sunglasses in the motel gift shop, and wore one of Ryan's t-shirts and a large pair of basketball shorts that slung low. She sang along to the song on the radio, one she remembered from years ago.

_Drinking by drinking for two_

_Drinking with you _

_When drinking was new _

He was watching her lip-sync the words, and just watching her made him smile. Catching him looking at her she managed an embarrassed giggle. "Stop looking at me!" She teased over the sound of the blasting stereo and open sunroof.

"I can't help it." It was playful and light. It was everything they needed

They pulled over 30 miles south, pulling into an empty 7-Eleven. They had spent the entire afternoon just driving in the drenching sunlight. From deep into Southern California's Suburban Wasteland to the outer deserts. Marissa felt like something was almost trying to wash her out, squeeze whatever had saturated her for so long. They had spent the afternoon saying little to nothing, ignoring everything heavy, and now as the purple sky closed in she felt it again. It was real, and she knew it wasn't just a fluke. She wanted to touch him again, she wanted to laugh with him, she wanted the sun to stay up, and she wanted to tell him to stay. He turned the car off and didn't look at her at first. They were alone except for one other car full of teenage kids, buying slurpies and fun dip.

"Should I start? Cause I guess I will, I'll be gone in a couple of days Ryan…"

It was so quiet. With nothing but the sound of the kids laughing in the backseat of a dusty pickup truck. The night was creeping along the desert outlines and the fluorescent lights were clicking on. She was terrified.

"Ryan….okay? I get it you don't even have to say anything." Hardening she looked around. She felt completely empty. All this was a blast from the past. A little piece of something that was destined to go down as a memory for her next dark binge.

It was so quiet. Colors crept across their faces.

She didn't want to look at him, but she found herself looking anyways. He was looking the other way, into whatever colors of purple that where starting to come across the edge of the desert.

Something filled her up when she saw his reactions. Something completely. He was crying. But not in an open way. Nothing was coming down his face, or anything but it was more than that, something about him was completely more heartbreaking than that.

"Marissa..."

She couldn't talk really but she tried to. She didn't even remember words forming.

"I lost you once, I can't loose you again." He took her hand and she knew he wasn't letting go. In the desert the night started to creep again, but it was beautiful, not scary. The sticky stars and navy blue colored in-between. He held her against him and she knew. She knew then it was permanent.


End file.
